霧のむこうのふしぎな町 ・ Mysterious Town Beyond the Mist (BBC) 🌬 🏘

[seanblue]

@Naphthalene

I feel it’s not possible to compare directly to 時をかける少女少女 because of (1) the lack of kanji here

Didn’t 時をかける少女 have the same lack of kanji?

[Naphthalene]

It only lacked (some) high-school kanji, this book is also lacking junior high kanji as far as I can tell.

[seanblue]

Huh, I didn’t even notice. That’s unfortunate.

[Naphthalene]

Looking it up, aoitori bunko is aimed at primary and junior high school students, so the content is adapted to their target audience
Not the best for learners with a focus on kanji, but at least that also removes all the weird expressions, metaphors and poetic stuff you may find in literature aimed at an older audience.

[shuly]

@Naphthalene

At the end of the day, I think it’s “the way it is”. No matter the pace, it will be too fast for some and too slow for others. It’s perfectly fine to fall behind and keep asking questions in previous threads. And if even asking questions/checking answers isn’t enough, then yes, giving up for now and going for easier material is probably the saner thing to do. Trying to force your way through content that is too hard for you is the best way to get overwhelmed and burn out.
(Still, to whoever is on the fence about it, wait until you are past chapter 1)

Well said!!!

…one option would be using the polls that are generated at the beginning of the weekly read and if too many people fall behind by some percentage (taking into account how many people give up)…instead of changing the pace you could easily “postpone 1 week” and people could use that as catch up if it’s really needed. My engineering mindset at work…

Week 2

Week 3

Week 4

We started with 30 then 26 then 20 readers… I don’t know the “typical” drop rates, but it that tells you anything … it is still early… Then looking at who’s behind 14, 19 to 45% … so it’ may be too early to tell if it’s too fast, but using the polls might be a good way to capture this and make “postpone a week or two for catchup” decision as needed. Just my engineering way of thinking

[Naphthalene]

@shuly

I don’t know the “typical” drop rates, but it that tells you anything … it is still early… Then looking at who’s behind 14, 19 to 45% … so it’ may be too early to tell if it’s too fast, but using the polls might be a good way to capture this and make “postpone a week or two for catchup” decision as needed. Just my engineering way of thinking

Drop rates are fairly typical, I would say. Flying witch went 56 → 37 → 33 → 26 then stabilized at 23-24.
I tried the postpone strategy with Haruhi, but it didn’t have much effect Could try that if the numbers do not get better soon…

[seanblue]

I usually look at the reading along numbers, not the total numbers, to see the drop rate. Either way, week 4 just started so you can’t judge that quite yet.

@Naphthalene

I tried the postpone strategy with Haruhi, but it didn’t have much effect

Haruhi was particularly difficult though, even for intermediate book club. So maybe that’s why. Not that I’m suggesting postponing for this book. I don’t care either way.

[Omun]

@NicoleIsEnough

Then I looked a bit further and discovered Glossary Mode

I will rudely butt in and say this out of nowhere: I love you.

[Radish8]

Thanks for initiating this discussion @NicoleIsEnough. I was a bit on the fence over whether to bring it up, but it’s clear quite a few people are struggling - though admirably persevering.

The issue, as always, is that we don’t want to spend forever on this book at the expense of starting our next, almost certainly easier read. It’s already set to be one of our longest ‘clubs’ yet. I also fear that those who are behind will struggle to catch up at this point even if we do slow the pace going forward?

We have the second volume of Flying Witch starting soonish, so hopefully that will provide an alternative option for those who are really finding this too much.

時をかける少女 had a max density of 645 characters per page, whereas this has 520, so about 80% of the content per page. I think perhaps with 時をかける少女 also, more people selected out from the start on the basis of it being a book, whereas this time we have a lot more people attempting it?

The lack of content on the vocab spreadsheet certainly hurts a lot. I’ve unfortunately not had much time this / last week (construction work is noisy too ), but hopefully I’ll be able to contribute quite a bit more to that going forward, which always makes it much easier to keep up / catch up.

[Kappa421]

Late reply, rough times. Thanks for your post. I definitely don’t have a high pain tolerance right now, haha. Haven’t really read a lot in the past 2 weeks, but trying to get back into it now with something that’s most fun to me and managable (and Kitty Detectives to catch up with!)

It’s interesting to hear that this is on the easier side of what you’ve read so far. I’ll definitely go back to it after reading some more manga volumes. It’s not like these are a breeze, so I’ll learn from it either way. (:

[Voi]

@ArseNiko

However, do you think is too much to write the book senteces one by one in a separete workbook and then translating it?

Not the one you directed the question to, but I tried something similar for my first book (manga) 夏目友人帳 and can give my experience. For me, the time spent doing every sentence was not worth what little gain I got from it, and I moved on to reading more fluidly (using the vocab sheet and jisho.org for vocab) and only breaking down particularly long or complicated sentences using my whiteboard and letting some others go. Even then, I think my comprehension was maybe 80%-ish?

Since it was my first time reading something lengthy not tailored to my exact learning level (textbooks, workbooks, etc) I found this method helped me process the “flow” of native material, and these days I’ve found I am better able to keep the thread of a sentence that has lots of relative clauses and not get overwhelmed with them. However, at the time I had completed both Genki I & II, so I had some grammar under my belt that let me get through the shorter sentence without too much trouble.

IMO I’ve found that reading something that I maybe only grasp 60-80% of is more beneficial to my learning than reading something incredibly easy or completely indecipherable.

@Radish8

The lack of content on the vocab spreadsheet certainly hurts a lot. I’ve unfortunately not had much time this / last week (construction work is noisy too ), but hopefully I’ll be able to contribute quite a bit more to that going forward, which always makes it much easier to keep up / catch up.

Now that vacation’s over, I’ve decided to join in on this book. I’m a bit behind, but I’ll see what I can do to help populate the vocab sheet as I catch up and going forward. I’ve leaned heavily on the vocab sheets so far, so I’d hate to see them fade away.

[Radish8]

Controversial suggestion

Returning to the discussion about pace…

I’m conscious that quite a few people have just managed to finish chapter 1 over the past couple of days (at least 4 - 5 at a quick glance). We’re halfway through the first week for chapter two on the schedule, and I think it would be a huge shame if all those people who’ve just about managed to keep up are now stuck always being a week or so behind.

Chapter 2 / week 4 is where we hit our steady pace, so (as we’ve discussed) some people may simply not be able to maintain that speed. However, this is also where we see the use of dialect drop off, so I imagine people are able to get through the material faster. Plus of course one always picks up speed.

I wondered whether it would be worth inserting a week’s break at the end of chapter two, to help people catch up before we start chapter three?

My thinking is that this might be a good compromise between helping people to stay with the group, and mostly maintaining our pace / finish date. It’s possible it won’t really help and we’ll have “wasted” a week, but one week doesn’t make all that much difference to the overall timeframe.

• I’m behind and think a week’s break would help me catch up
• I’m behind but don’t think a week’s break would make much difference anyway
• I’m not behind but am happy to have a week’s break
• I’m not behind and would rather press on without a break

[seanblue]

I’m feeling so unmotivated to read this right now.

[sansarret]

Oi this hurts

[seanblue]

The manga I’m reading are just so much more fun than this book… So far at least. Maybe it’ll get more interesting.

[Belerith]

I thought it did get more interesting. ^^

So, maybe just keep on keeping on? Where are you up to?

[seanblue]

Cool. Around when does it get more interesting? I finished chapter two a couple days ago, but I haven’t started chapter three yet.

[Belerith]

Probably around chapter 3.

If you don’t mind being spoiled a bit, [spoiler]from that point on each chapter focuses on リナ meeting one (set of) characters, so you get to know the residents a bit more. ^^[1]

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1. /spoiler ↩︎

[Tonina]

I made a mistake with my vote and don’t know how to change it. I’m not behind but I don’t mind a break.

[sansarret]

You can click on “Show vote” button and re-vote.